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I'm planning well ahead for my next move and have recently read about renting between selling your current home and buying the next. This never occurred to me before and it's got me thinking.

I can see the advantage of not being in a chain but what about the risks? I'm thinking that there's a chance you could sell, rent and then not be able to get a mortgage again. Is there any way you could rent between buying while having an agreed mortgage in place?

I'd love to hear your experiences of this so I can weigh up what to do in the future when the time comes.

I'd say the main risk is in timing... if you sell, then rent (into a fixed term) and find your ideal home the next week, how would you handle the rent situation. You may be wealthy enough to write it off as a convenience expense for instance.

The above facts belong to everybody; the opinions belong to me; the distinction is yours to draw...

We are in a similar position, we have just sold ours but not yet found a new house. Looking at possible new builds which would be handy as we would have a rough time frame, could maybe do a 6 month contract for renting, the other alternative was to explain our situation and look for a rolling one month contract and offer extra per month. Another option which has happened to me before is to offer the property owner to pay their estate agent fees when you move out, we arranged this a few years ago, we explained we needed somewhere short term, so had no set
Time on the contract but we agreed to pay the estate agents fees for the owner when we moved Obviously these options are dependant on the owner and estate agent I suppose but worth looking at

We are in a similar position, we have just sold ours but not yet found a new house. Looking at possible new builds which would be handy as we would have a rough time frame, could maybe do a 6 month contract for renting, the other alternative was to explain our situation and look for a rolling one month contract and offer extra per month. Another option which has happened to me before is to offer the property owner to pay their estate agent fees when you move out, we arranged this a few years ago, we explained we needed somewhere short term, so had no set
Time on the contract but we agreed to pay the estate agents fees for the owner when we moved ���� Obviously these options are dependant on the owner and estate agent I suppose but worth looking at

To me it's mainly that it's pricey and a hassle. Quite a few people said to us when we last moved that we'd have a hard time getting an offer accepted if we were in a chain downwards, but that wasn't our experience. And I suppose that now, not getting a mortgage is a risk - some people are finding they are now not eligible for lower mortgages than they had before, even when earning the same or more. But if your finances and work are steady and you don't need to totally max out on a mortgage, you should be OK.

Pros - we were moving to a new area which although we know it fairly well, you only really know somewhere when you live there - and this helped us identify potential locations which we had dismissed prior to moving. Not being in a chain did eventually help when we rushed through a completion on our current place just before the Christmas break.

Cons - we ended up having to move again when our Landlord decided that she wanted to move back into the rental, which was a pain, but we actually then downsized to a 1 bed flat and bunged most belongings into storage. There is a risk if you are in an area where prices are growing strongly. And you tend to live in amongst boxes which may or may not work for you

Overall - it worked for us. Mortgage availability wasn't an issue and the experience was overall positive. We met one idiot letting agent and one excellent one which probably beats the average, and it bought us loads of time (almost too much and we got quite picky) to find a new permanenet place to buy.

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